


Poor Visibility

by Draycevixen



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love, Weekly Obbo Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/pseuds/Draycevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees.</p><p>Written for the The Weekly Obbo Challenge: Snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poor Visibility

.

Being in bed with Bodie had been the stuff my dreams were made of but the reality left a lot to be desired. In all the times I’d imagined it, I’d never imagined _this_. The clink of Bodie’s handcuffs as he shifted in the bed was loud in the quiet room. I wanted to reach out and touch him but while there might be only two feet of mattress separating us, the huddled back turned toward me meant he might as well have been two miles away.

***

I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on him, across a patch of broken concrete hemmed in on all sides by condemned warehouses leaning drunkenly against a grey sky. In his fashionable clothes he wasn’t at all what I’d expected from his hard man reputation. It was only his unrelenting parade rest stance as the wind whipped snow around him, pressing the fabric of his lightweight coat to the outline of his body, that made it obvious his clothes were nothing more than mufti. Having arrived late I slipped in to stand beside him and for a few brief seconds his extraordinary dark blue eyes took their measure of me, a few stray snowflakes trapped in the long sweep of his eyelashes. The quirk of one imperious eyebrow made it obvious that he found me wanting as he refocused his attention on Cowley who was organizing the search.

***

Bodie was right to find me wanting. I wanted him from that day forward, from the moment the Cow introduced us and we shook hands. It was Bodie’s complete indifference to me just as much as his looks that drew me in. I never could resist a challenge.

After all, that inability to resist a challenge was what had brought me to CI5 in the first place. Well that and George Cowley of course. It wasn’t easy settling in either, the squad were a close-knit group, difficult to get to know and I had to quickly curb my desire to ask too many questions about Bodie. Getting any information out of Bodie himself proved equally impossible. Close-mouthed, he was reluctant to talk about his past experience in the army, even more reticent on the subject of his time in Africa. It had taken persistence just to get Bodie to talk to me about anything outside of the job or not involving the relative merits of barmaids’ tits. But it had been worth the trouble. Beneath that beautiful but seemingly shallow exterior of easy relationships and easy charm I could see flashes of much deeper emotions, trust and regard glimpsed by few and entrusted to even fewer and I wanted it. I was greedy enough to want all of it, all of him.

The problem was he didn’t want me. I’m not blind to my own charms. If enough attractive lovers of both sexes tell you that you have beautiful eyes, that they admire the way you fill out a pair of jeans, you just can’t be. I couldn’t even console myself with the thought that he just wasn’t interested in men. When you work in the sort of testosterone laden and rule bound world we do you learn to be discreet, but as we were both living behind the same facade of hard-drinking Lotharios it wasn’t too difficult to spot when his gaze lingered just a fraction too long on the same well-turned male arse that I’d been watching myself out of the corner of my eye. So with a deep sense of regret for what might have been I’d given up hope.

Then I’d got shot and everything changed. He’d practically camped out by my hospital bed, obviously taking it personally that he’d been unable to stop it from happening. After Macklin cleared me to work again, Bodie stuck closer to me on the job when he could and practically stopped dating as he sought my company more after work. The night we talked into the early hours of the morning about his lost years in Africa I’d felt sure we’d turned a corner.

And then he’d withdrawn in to his shell again. We still worked together, but it went back to how it’d been between us when we’d first met. I’d been thinking about what I might have done wrong, what I could do to fix things, when we’d been caught off guard and taken prisoner by Galli’s men. They’d wanted to know where Cowley was and we’d refused to talk. Then they’d threatened Bodie’s life and my tongue had loosened on the spot. That’s when Bodie had punched my lights out.

***

“Bodie.”

Still no answer. I swung my legs gingerly over the edge of the bed, pushed off with my cuffed hands and lurched around the bed to look down at him.

“Christ. Look at what they did to your face.” I fell to my knees, flinching as he flinched away from me.

“You... shouldn’t... have told them... anything.” Bodie’s voice was thick and hoarse through split lips.

“I had to protect you.”

“Not... yours... to protect.”

“About that, Bodie, I’ve—”

My words broke off at the sudden sound of gunfire outside. The door was kicked in and Doyle flew through it, gun drawn. He bent down to look at Bodie before cursing and yelling back over his shoulder to Anson to get the ambulance men.

 

I was in the front garden, heading for the ambulance, when Doyle stopped me with a hand to my arm.

“I’ll take it from here, Murph.”

“But I wanted—”

“I know... and thanks.”

I turned to stare at him. “What are you thanking me for?”

“If you hadn’t wanted... You made me jealous. I might never have worked it out otherwise.”

Doyle brushed by me to climb in to the back of the ambulance. I saw him bend to cup Bodie’s cheek, saw Bodie leaning in to that touch as much as he could, right before they closed the ambulance door.

 

.


End file.
